An Amendment to S. 2657, American Energy Innovation Act of 2020

Summary

Estimates are relative to CBO’s January 2020 baseline.

The legislation contains numerous provisions that would affect spending subject to appropriation. CBO estimates implementing those provisions would increase such spending by more than $5 billion over the 2020-2025 period, but CBO has not completed that estimate.

Subtitle A would increase federal agencies’ use of third-party financing for energy efficiency measures, such as energy savings performance contracts and utility energy savings contracts.

Subtitle E would direct the Secretary of Energy to enter into agreements with nonfederal partners to implement projects to demonstrate advanced nuclear technologies.

Subtitle H would amend existing law to change the timing of certain sales of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The bill contains intergovernmental and private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) by preempting state, local, and tribal laws and by increasing fees paid by public and private entities to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. CBO estimates that the cost to comply with the mandates would not exceed the intergovernmental or private-sector thresholds established in UMRA ($84 million and $168 million, respectively, in 2020, adjusted annually for inflation).